And they thought we wouldn't fight Part 21

"Nor the footstools?" the Major continued, this time with an unmistakable tone.

The man didn't answer.

"Do you two think you are taking moon baths on the Riviera?" the Major asked sternly. "You are less than two hundred yards from the Germans.

You are all wrapped up like Egyptian mummies. Somebody could lean over the top and snake off your head with a trench knife before you could get your feet loose. Take those blankets off your feet and stand up."

The men arose with alacrity, shedding the blankets and removing the grenade box chairs. The Major continued:

"You know you are not sitting in a club window in Fifth Avenue and watching the girls go by. You're not looking for chickens out there.

There's a hawk over there and sometimes he carries off precious little lambs. Now, the next time anybody steps around the corner of that trench, you be on your feet with your bayonet and gun ready to mix things."

The lambs saluted as the Major moved off with a train of followers who, by this time, were beginning to feel that these trenches held other lambs, only they carried notebooks instead of cartridge belts.

Stopping in front of a dugout, the Major gathered us about to hear the conversation that was going on within. Through the cracks of the door, we looked down a flight of steep stairs, dug deep into this battlefield graveyard. There were lights in the chamber below and the sound of voices came up to us. One voice was singing softly.

"Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with the dirt behind their ears, The infantry, the infantry, they don't get any beers, The cavalry, the artillery, and the lousy engineers, They couldn't lick the infantry in a hundred million years."

"I got a brother in the artillery," came another voice, "but I am ready to disown him. They talk a lot about this counter battery work, but it's all bunk. A battery in position has nice deep dugouts and hot chow all the time. They gets up about 9 o'clock in the morning and shaves up all nice for the day.

"'Bout 10 o'clock the captain says, 'I guess we will drop a few sh.e.l.ls on that German battery on the other side of the hill.' So they pops off forty or fifty rounds in that general direction and don't hit anything 'cause the German battery immediately roots down into its nice, deep dugouts. As soon as our battery lays off and gets back into its holes, the German battery comes out and pops back forty or fifty at 'em and, of course, don't hurt them neither.

"Then it is time for lunch, and while both of these here batteries is eating, they get so sore about not having hit each other during the morning, that they just call off counter battery work for the day and turn their guns on the front lines and blow h.e.l.l out of the infantry. I haven't got any use for an artilleryman. I'm beginning to think all of them Germans and Allies are alike and has an agreement against the doughboys."

The Major interrupted by rapping sharply on the door.

"Come in," was the polite and innocent invitation guilelessly spoken from below. The Major had his helmet on, so he couldn't tear his hair.

"Come up here, you idiots, every one of you."

The Major directed his voice down into the hole in an unmistakable and official tone. There was a scurrying of feet and four men emerged carrying their guns. They were lined up against the trench wall.

"At midnight," the Major began, "in your dugout in the front line forty yards from the Germans, with no sentry at the door, you hear a knock on the door and you shout, 'Come in.' I commend your politeness, and I know that's what your mothers taught you to say when visitors come, but this isn't any tea fight out here. One German could have wiggled over the top here and stood in this doorway and captured all four of you single-handed, or he could have rolled a couple of bombs down that hole and blown all of you to smithereens. What's your aim in life--hard labour in a German prison camp or a nice little wooden cross out here four thousand miles from Punkinville? Why wasn't there any sentry at that door?"

The question remained unanswered but the incident had its effect on the quartet. Without orders, all four decided to spend the remainder of the night on the firing step with their eyes glued on the enemy's line. They simply hadn't realised they were really in the war. The Major knew this, but made a mental reservation of which the commander of this special platoon got full benefit before the night was over.

The front line from here onward followed a small ridge running generally east and west, but now bearing slightly to the northward. We were told the German line ran in the same general direction, but at this point bore to the southward.

The opposing lines in the direction of our course were converging and we were approaching the place where they were the closest in the sector. If German listening posts heard the progress of our party through the line, only a telephone call back to the artillery was necessary to plant a sh.e.l.l among us, as every point on the system was registered.

As we silently considered various eventualities immaterial to the prosecution of the war but not without personal concern, our progress was brought to a sudden standstill.

"Huh-huh-halt!" came a drawn-out command in a husky, throaty stammer, weaker than a whisper, from an undersized tin-hatted youngster planted in the centre of the trench not ten feet in front of us. His left foot was forward and his bayoneted rifle was held ready for a thrust.

"Huh-huh-huh-halt!" came the nervous, whispering command again, although we had been motionless since the first whisper.

We heard a click as the safety catch on the man's rifle lock was thrown off and the weapon made ready to discharge. The Major was watching the nervous hand that rested none too steadily on the trigger stop. He stepped to one side, but the muzzle of the gun followed him.

"Huh-huh-huh-halt! I tuh-tuh-tell you."

This time the whisper vibrated with nervous tension and there was no mistaking the state of mind of the sentry.

"Take it easy," replied the Major with attempted calm. "I'm waiting for you to challenge me. Don't get excited. This is the commanding officer."

"What's the countersign?" came from the voice in a hard strain.

"Troy," the Major said, and the word seemed to bring worlds of rea.s.surance to the rifleman, who sighed with relief, but forgot to move his rifle until the Major said:

"Will you please take that gun off me and put the safety back in?"

The nervous sentry moved the gun six inches to the right and we correspondents, standing in back of the Major, looked into something that seemed as big as the La Salle street tunnel. I jumped out of range behind the Major. Eyre plunged knee-deep into water out of range, and Woods with the rubber boots started to go over the top.

The click of the replaced safety lock sounded unusually like the snap of a trigger, but no report followed and three hearts resumed their beating.

"There is no occasion to get excited," the Major said to the young soldier in a fatherly tone. "I'm glad to see you are wide-awake and on the job. Don't feel any fears for your job and just remember that with that gun and bayonet in your hands you are better than any man who turns that trench corner or crosses out there. You've got the advantage of him, and besides that you are a better man than he is."

The sentry, now smiling, saluted the Major as the latter conducted the party quietly around the trench corner and into a sap leading directly out into No Man's Land. Twice the trench pa.s.sed under broad belts of barbed wire, which we were cautioned to avoid with our helmets, because any sound was undesirable for obvious reasons.

After several minutes of this cautious advance, we reached a small listening post that marked the closest point in the sector to the German line. Several silent sentries were crouching on the edge of the pit.

Gunny sacks covered the hole and screened it in front and above. We remained silent while the Major in the lowest whisper spoke with a corporal and learned that except for two or three occasions, when the watchers thought they heard sounds near our wire, the night had been calm.

We departed as silently as we came. The German line from a distance of forty yards looked no different from its appearance at a greater distance, but since it was closer, it was carried with a constant tingle of antic.i.p.ation.

Into another communicating trench and through better walled fortifications of splintered forest, the Major led us to a place where the recent sh.e.l.ling had changed twenty feet of trench into a gaping gulley almost without sides and waist-deep in water. A working detail was endeavouring to repair the damage. In parties of two, we left the trench and crossed an open s.p.a.ce on the level. The forty steps we covered across that forbidden ground were like stolen fruit. Such rapture! Bazin, who was seeking a t.i.tle for a book, pulled "Eureka!"

"Over the top armed with a pencil," he said. "Not bad, eh?"

Back in Seicheprey, just before the Major left us for our long trip back to quarters, he led the way to the entrance of a cemetery, well kept in the midst of surrounding chaos. Graves of French dead ranged row upon row.

"I just wanted to show you some of the fellows that held this line until we took it over," he said simply. "Our own boys that we've lost since we've been here, are buried down in the next village."

We silently saluted the spot as we pa.s.sed it thirty minutes later.

CHAPTER IX

THE NIGHT OUR GUNS CUT LOOSE

As soon as our forces had made themselves at home in the Toul sector, it was inevitable that belligerent activity would increase and this, in spite of the issuance of strict orders that there should be no development of the normal daily fire. Our men could not entirely resist the temptation to start something.

As was to be expected, the Germans soon began to suspect that they were faced by different troops from the ones who had been confronting them.

The enemy set out to verify his suspicions. He made his first raid on the American line.

It was in a dense mist on the morning of January 30th that the Germans lowered a terrific barrage on one of our advance listening posts and then rushed the position with a raiding party outnumbering the defendants ten to one.

Two Americans held that post--five more succeeded in making their way through the storm of falling sh.e.l.ls and in coming to the a.s.sistance of the first two. That made seven Americans in the fight. When the fighting ceased, every one of the seven had been accounted for in the three items, dead, wounded or captured.